“What about that woman? Have you found her?” I asked.
He furrowed his brow. It was clear he hadn’t, and I could tell it pained him. He looked haunted by the unsolved case.
“Not yet, but we will.” Sheriff Almond twisted a thick strand from his mustache. “Have you noticed anything unusual around here?”
I considered his question. The words sat at the tip of my tongue—the clothes in the dresser, the woman’s scream, the locked basement door—but I swallowed them. “I’m from New York. Most everything here is strange to me,” I landed on.
He folded in his lips and nodded. “If you do notice anything, you have my number.” The sheriff turned on his foot and walked to the door. “Want this open or closed?”
“Closed,” I said.
He tilted his head and left the room, shutting it behind him.
I turned the card over and over in my hands. He didn’t say I was safe here. He said I’d be fine. Fine. I plucked my book from the nightstand and slid the business card inside of it.
I’ll be fine. I’ll be fine. I repeated it over and over until I started to believe it.
Outside, the roar of engines startled me. Peeking out the window, I saw Joe seated in the back of a police cruiser. The vehicle pulled out, then Sheriff Almond’s, and then Calvin’s truck.
Without thinking, I swung my legs out of bed, tiptoed toward the door, and listened for a moment. When I heard nothing, I slowly opened it and stuck my head out, peering down the long hallway. The house was quiet. The floorboards creaked beneath me as I crept across them.
“Calvin,” I called out. “Are you here?”
Silence.
I’ll be fine.
“Albert,” I said.
There was silence save for the creaking the house made on its own, like little warnings to those inside of it.
I stopped in front of the door leading to the basement. The one area of the ranch that was off-limits. But why? I placed my hand against it—willing it to tell me what was on the other side. What did Calvin not want me to see? What was he hiding? I slid a hand into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out a bobby pin. After twisting and bending it, I slid the pin into the keyhole of the door. I took a deep breath and got to work. I needed to know what was down there. I needed to know what he was hiding.
After a few minutes, the lock popped. The open door revealed a set of decrepit wooden stairs jutting out. Moisture and the smell of mildew hung heavy in the air. A metallic tinge wafted into my nostrils, permeating every breath I took. I flipped the light switch on the wall at the top of the stairs, but nothing illuminated the dark cavern below. Pulling out my phone, I turned on the flashlight （the only thing it was good for in this house） and slowly descended the steps. The damp old wood absorbed my weight. As my line of sight dropped below the walls, I began to make out large mounds scattered across the space before me; stacks of boxes mixed with various unknowns formed a jagged and misshaped mountain range, a miniature remake of the mountains just aboveground, beyond the river. The place was the creation of a hoarder who collected various treasures with no intention of relinquishing them. I weaved my way along the path cut through the junk, trying to find anything of importance. I waved my phone, and then I noticed something very odd for a basement in someone’s home: pairs of eyes, yellow and dead, following me. My body froze to listen for movement or breathing. Nothing. I wanted to turn back and run but curiosity got the better of me, and I charged forward. As I moved around another stack of boxes, a massive cobweb planted itself across my face.
“Ahh, gross, gross, gross,” I squealed and jumped back, knocking into a tower of junk.
I turned to see what I had bumped into, but there were those eyes again, no more than a foot in front of me, paired with razor-sharp teeth, bearing down at me. I put my hands up to block my face and shrieked but . . . nothing happened. I reopened my eyes, and there it was, still in the same spot. Looking at it closer, I realized what it was. A stuffed raccoon. How the hell were there more of these down here? Did he switch them out for each season?
There were other pairs of eyes across the room, and I quickly went to inspect each of them. A weasel, a badger, a coyote, all stuffed and dead, staring me down from somewhere beyond.
I reached out to touch one of them. It was stiff and its coat was coarse. Backing away from the dead creatures, I bumped into another stack of boxes. Inside the top one was a hodgepodge of junk: old books, a belt, a small fishing tackle box, and a stack of photos. I collected the pictures, flipping through them. The first was a picture of Joe and Calvin out by the river with fishing poles in their hands. They had to have been teenagers in it. The next one was Calvin, Joe, and an older man and woman. The older man was unusually large with a stern face full of frown lines. The older woman was petite and beautiful with long brown hair. She wore way too much makeup—more than she clearly needed unless she was trying to cover something up. A forced smile was plastered across her face. These were their parents.
The next photo made my mouth drop open and my hands relax. All the pictures fell to the ground. I stared down at the collage of photos, my eyes glued to the one on top. The one that revealed a lie. I bent down slowly and picked it up, bringing it closer to my line of sight. Calvin and Joe were seated on a bench. Calvin had to have been around eighteen. Sitting in a chair beside them was a much younger Albert without the rosacea. He was all smiles. I turned the photo over and discovered the handwritten message on the back. Summer of ’04. Calvin, Joe, and Uncle Albert.
I slid the photo into the back pocket of my jeans. Albert was Calvin’s uncle. He lied to me. He wasn’t his Airbnb guest, not some guy passing through. He was family. Why would he lie about a thing like that?
I picked up the rest of the photos and tossed them in the box, closing it back up.
Making my way through the path, I had every intention of going back upstairs, but something else stopped me. A large notebook sat on top of a tote. The words Calvin’s Guest Book were written in thick black letters on the cover. My fingers grazed over them.
Each page was filled with names and dates. I quickly gathered that the dates were check-in and checkout times, beginning one year ago. I found the last page and ran my finger down it, reading the names. Cristina Colton stuck out because the rest before it were all male names. Then Kayla Whitehead. I remembered Calvin’s words: I don’t really get any female guests. Kayla had been a guest just nine weeks before me. My eyes moved down the page and when I got to the last row I gasped. The words were written neatly with a heart over the letter i. The check-in column had a date. The checkout column didn’t. The final name on the page was Bri Becker. Calvin lied about her. She was here, and according to this guest book . . . she never left.
A car door slammed outside. I jolted and quickly closed the guest book, putting it back where I found it. I ran to the stairs but before I ascended them, I stopped. Something behind the open staircase caught my eye. A folding table sat behind it. Several guns, knives, and bullets were laid out, an arsenal for mayhem. I picked up the small handgun and turned it over and over again. I set it back down, and my fingertips slid over a large hunting knife. The blade was curved, and the handle was wooden. It appeared homemade. I held it, studying it closely. There was a red tint to the edge of the blade as if it weren’t cleaned properly the last time it was used. I backed away from the table with the knife in hand and quickly ran up the stairs, closing and locking the basement door behind me.